A different life
by Madame BonBons
Summary: Maybe if they had been born out of District 2, their lives would have been different. But they weren't.


**I am truly in love with this pairing so this little (well big) story was born. Enjoy!**

**_disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer_**

* * *

If they had been born outside of District Two, maybe their lives would have been different.

A blonde boy may have been born to two loving parents, and he may have grown up playing with his parents and little sisters and older brother. A little girl may have been born to two loving parents and have grown up being loved and cherished like the precious little girl she would become.

One day, on their way to school, they may have bumped into each other and become friends, sharing secrets and laughing at the back of the classroom. And when they got older, their friendship may have made the natural progression into lovers, and then when they had not been Reaped for the Games, they would have got married.

They would have loved. They would have laughed and they would have lived.

However they were born in District 2, and that makes all the difference.

* * *

The little girl is instead born into a family with a very sickly mother and a hard father who does not show her affection, but drills into her the values of the Tributes. Kill. Fight. Live. That is all she learns.

She kills him when she is nine. He is threatening her at the dinner table because she fed the scraps to a stray dog outside their house and she knows that what follows after will splash the table with blood and make bruises on her skin.

And so she does the only logical thing. She picks up the knife from the table and stabs in into his neck.

The colour of his blood mesmerises her. The strength of the red, then the increasing white pallor of his skin and then the decreasing darkness as the blood drained out of him. She goes to sleep in her bed and then in the morning enlists in the Academy.

* * *

The little boy is instead born into a family with a threatening mother and a weak father and he is tortured daily until he can recite the Capitol's rules and all of the Victors of the Hunger Games in his sleep. He is taught that weakness is something that will get him killed, and the amount of times his mother has whipped him soon flushes out his weaknesses.

She forces him and his brother to fight to the death when they are nine and it is only when he smashes his brother into the ground and then suffocates him that his mother first smiles at him. All he remembers is a choke, the brown dirt and the blue of his brother's eyes staring into his own as his life fades.

His mother throws him into the Academy and he does not see her again until the next Reaping.

* * *

They meet in the pouring rain as they are running their 15 km one day. She is nine and he is ten and everyone knows they are the ones to be afraid of.

In their training sessions each time he growls or she picks up a knife the weaker ones flinch and the Trainers see their little smirks to one another. One day she kills a bird and plucks it and then cuts patterns into the birds flesh before ripping the bones out and surveying them with interest.

She decides that the full red of blood compliments the stark white of the bone and she decides that she likes the two colours together very much. It is then that she realises that when she is a Victor, her talent will be painting - the red and whites and blacks that go along with the thought of death and killing.

* * *

He grows stronger every day, lifting more than everyone and throwing further and stabbing deeper.

One of the others boys his age comes up to him one day and then the others do, and he cannot have anyone hating him, just fearing him, so he goes along with it. But one day they are laughing at something. He thinks they are laughing at him and so he grips his fork tighter and scowls and they do not sit by him again, not for a couple of years at least.

He spots her sitting alone too, and she glares at him and he quickly looks away. She is called a nut job when she is not around and the girls scathingly say that she is as ugly as a groosling.

He can't help but agree.

* * *

When she is sixteen, she kills another. They are sparring in the Academy and before she knows it he has said something particularly nasty about the way she looks, and then even worse, how well she handles the weapons.

The next thing she realises is that the Trainers are pulling her off him and she is screaming insults and he is gargling on the mat with a knife in his stomach, one in his neck and another in his chest. He dies a minute or two after and then she is laughing as the blood seems weak, a red which only reminds her of the strawberries, not the blood red berries and it makes him seem weak. He was weak, she thinks derisively, as they throw her in a cell and torture her as punishment and then they give her a pat on the back and tell her that she will be a Victor.

She only snorts, of course she will be.

The others are not so loud in their hatred of her after that and every time she picks up her trusty knives even the Trainers seem to have a flicker of apprehension within their hardened eyes.

* * *

He nearly chokes one of the Trainers to death one day for suggesting that one of the others will become the Tribute instead of him when he is eligible.

He is seventeen, and knows that the next year he will be a Tribute and anyone who stands in his way will die too, because a little extra blood spilled will not harm him, in fact he longs for it.

He sees her practicing with her knives and so he trains with her, and each nick of his sword on her skin steels his resolve and his bloodlust and he wishes that she is in the Arena too, so he can kill her and see her confidence disappear from her eyes. They are gorgeous eyes, he realises.

But she gets him with her knives more than he gets her, and soon his skin is littered with scars and his pride is being bruised.

So he lunges even harder and one day he has her trapped against the Academy's wall and she is unarmed. So he presses the tip of his sword to her delicate neck and inhales the scent of her fear. Because she would be stupid not to fear him as all the others do. And then she is wrapping her legs around his waist, and smiling seductively and for a minute he falters and then she has a knife at his chest, right above his heart.

"Checkmate." She whispers and then presses a scorching kiss to his lips and then she is gone. And he is left standing there, his pride once more shattered by the tiny, crazy girl who has been locked up in The Cell for days on time for threatening Trainers and badly injuring others.

* * *

The following year, they have been chosen as the Volunteers and they go into the Reaping coolly confident.

He was an easy choice, intimidating the others who had been training just for this moment and as the Trainers resisted he picked up his sword and decapitated one of the boys. No one questions him after that and his mother, who has come down to see him be chosen smiles at him and then walks away. He knows he has, or had, a little sister but he has no idea if she still lives. He has seen his mother every year at the Reapings and every year she has stared past him. He has not seen his father. The only member of his family he still sees is his brother. His blue eyes boring into him as he sleeps, seeing into his corrupted soul.

She was not so much of an easy choice. There are three others who are up for contention, but she has been itching out of her skin for it and in the end he tells the Trainers that he wants her there with him, not the others.

The Trainers assume that he just wants the satisfaction of killing her, and he does, but there is something so much more than that. It is a need to figure her out, as he has never wanted to do for anyone else. So she gets to volunteer too.

She corners him in the changing rooms and slams him into a locker and then he has her by the throat and they are glaring at each other.

"I didn't need your help." She snaps, and then he kisses her, like she did to him a year ago and a little part of his pride is mended.

* * *

When they are on the train they finally learn each other's names. He is Cato, she is Clove.

Their mentors look at each other and then the battle has begun. They will not be a team. Well, they will up until there are five of them left and then one of them will die and the other will survive. That much, they know.

He notices her drinking the hot chocolate greedily and smirks to himself. But then, he is shovelling down the food just as fast. They may have been fed well their entire lives, but they have never had food so rich and so they eat up and their escort almost glares at their lack of table manners and their mentors just leave.

They smile at each other and it is a true smile and it is so not normal for them that they avoid each other for the rest of the day. Because Career Tributes like themselves do not smile unless they have killed or maimed or won the Games.

* * *

Then they are entering the Capitol and it is everything they had imagined and more and then it occurs that one of them, or maybe even both is going to die.

She suddenly becomes more sober and he can tell that she is swallowing a lump in her throat, even if they are Careers and the only thing they know is how to fight and kill and live. Because it is the living part that really gets them. And both of them want to live.

She still plays with knifes, and every moment she is flicking him with it and he bleeds and he crushes her against walls and bruises her skin. Because they love it when the other one is hurting.

* * *

In Trainings they pair up, because they have to and they get Glimmer and Marvel on their side. He flirts with the blonde District One Tribute and she throws knives into dummies and learns how to make a fire and throw a spear. It is almost as easy as throwing a knife, but it doesn't feel right on her arm.

There is always a racket going on, and she cannot wait to sink her knives into some of these people and hear them scream and make beautiful designs on her skin and see the blood flowing from the wound.

He can't wait to stop playing games and win and when the stupid kid from 9 tries to use his sword, he pushes him out of the way and grabs it and smashes it into a dummy and then spits at the boy.

He can't help but laugh at the boy's scared face.

* * *

In the end, they both break. They are highly tuned weapons, but even weapons have to break at some point.

He is becoming more volatile and she is slowly shredding up every blank wall in their apartment. And so they are forced into their rooms, and there she chokes and cries herself to sleep because she did not imagine that being a Tribute would be so hard, and he throws a knife in the walls. The thumps as it lands help her fall asleep and the cries he hears from her room make him feel better that he is not alone in feeling helpless.

It is a foreign emotion in these two people and they do not understand it.

* * *

The interviews are easy. He is himself, ruthless, arrogant, and strong and she is herself, snarky, sadistic and cruel.

Their individual training sessions are easy too and they come out of them feeling oh so confident and oh so ready to get into the arena and spill some blood.

When the girl from 12 gets an 11 though, he goes feral. He smashes tables and walls and throws chairs into windows and is finally stopped when Brutus pins him against the wall and then forces him into his room.

She just sits there, clenching her jaw because she knows that someone who flies off the handle will not win the Games, and she is going to win.

Later on, she goes into his room and slips into bed and starts to tell him exactly how she is going to kill him. She leaves no detail out and even gets a blunt knife and drags it down his chest and across his throat, demonstrating what she is going to do.

He chuckles and then he is whispering into her ear exactly how he is going to kill her. A stab in the gut, then in the heart, across the throat and then he will hold her as she dies so he can look into her eyes and see the fear of death.

This ritual calms them both, steels their mind and then they are asleep, curled into one another, the knife forgotten on the floor.

* * *

The day before they are due to go into the arena, she stops looking at him and he stops looking at her. They do not touch each other again and install a barrier between themselves labelled Allies.

He stays in the lounge late because he cannot sleep and she lies in the corridor, imagining how she will run to the cornucopia and then slaughter a number of weak Tributes. The only sadness is that she will not get to see their life force drain out of them, because she will be killing another.

The last thing he says to her just as he is entering his room is "I'm looking forward to when it is just us left in the arena."

"So am I." She replies and then she too gets up and goes to bed.

* * *

They can't help but become a team together in the arena. All of the other Careers are annoying. Marvel is alright, when he isn't glaring at Clove, Cato decides. After all, just like Cato, Marvel wants to spear little girls and cause pain to all the others.

Glimmer isn't too tough, and is weak with weapons, but she is also callous and snarky. Clove hates her, especially when she touches Cato and giggles at something he has said.

She isn't jealous, but Glimmer will die and Cato is embarrassing her. They haven't got anything from sponsors yet.

When the tracker jacker nest opens and Glimmer is writing on the ground, along with the girl from 4, he grabs her hand and then run until they reach the lake and the cornucopia. He is seeing his brother again, alive, but this time he is the one being killed and his brother is the cruel killer. Then his mother is whipping him again. And then he is seeing himself happy and flirting with a girl who seems to be Clove, but then she turns into this flaming fire which consumes him and he is writing on the edge of the lake in agony.

She has already passed out.

When they wake up she kisses him, not because he saved her, of course not, because Careers do not save other Careers, but because she wants to get inside his head even more.

She can sense that he is very unhinged already, ever since the tracker jacker incident and she wants to unhinge him even more.

The only problem is that he kisses her back and there is suddenly a glint in his eyes that there has never been before. He is onto her, and is doing the exact same thing.

* * *

Instead of avoiding each other, they become closer, whispering little tips to each other and at night, when Marvel is asleep they whisper how they will kill the others.

He notices she always wants to cut people up, draw grotesque patterns on their skin, leave them in agony for minutes and she notices he wants to get it over with quickly, but not too quickly.

It is because she loves death and he loathes it.

* * *

When he stabs Peeta, it isn't because he was helping 12 get away. Well, it partially is, but it also more than that. It is because Peeta is a good guy and he is not. And because every time Peeta looks at him, he sees his brother in his baby blue eyes.

And he does not want to see his brother anymore.

Cato is haunted by him every night and every time he kills he does not see the Tributes eyes, but his brothers. So he kills more, to try and get the image out of his head.

Because murderers shouldn't be able to feel remorse, should they?

* * *

She whispers that he is "deliciously psychopathic" one night and he lets out a feral growl and pins her to the ground. She is just as psychotic as him, but he feels the need to patch up his pride more and prove that he is worse.

So he ties her to a tree and cuts patterns into her, slowly and cruelly. But she does not cry out.

He cuts off part of her hair, and she flinches, but she does not cry out.

And then he kisses her. If his mouth were not covering hers, she would have cried out. Because this kiss is not like the others, harsh and full of anger and hate. It is instead filled with self hatred and it is desperate, like someone needs to save him before he drowns in the raging flood of mania that is surrounding him.

And it cannot be her, because she is going to kill him, she wants to kill him - to see the hulking strong man that he is intimidated, bleeding, pleading for death.

So she pushes him aside and cuts his cheek and his thigh and disappears into the night.

Their alliance has been broken.

* * *

He is starting to kill birds and squirrels and is enjoying their pain as he is dragging out the kills longer and longer. He killed one of the Tributes by stabbing him in the gut and then slicing off his head, but he had time to antagonise him. And in a way it scares him that he is starting to really enjoy killing.

She has been biding her time, moving at night and then napping during the day high up in a tree, since Rue died and no one else can get up trees.

And so when Templesmith is telling them that two people can win from the same District, she falls out of her tree onto the ground.

She thinks she has jarred something because she can only lie there blinking as the words sink in.

She does not have to kill him anymore, and he does not have to kill her.

The Games have made her more sober than ever, as the cries of those she has killed have repeated in her head. They cried out for parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, any one to come and save them, and with those cries came a thought that she has always been alone and no one will ever care about her.

It is something that the Careers should not be thinking, but she cannot help it. She still has a soul, even if it is twisted and sadistic. And she still has a heart, and even if it beats for the sight of blood and killing it still beats for affection too.

He finds her on the ground and he thinks that she is dying. He picks her up and tells her that it is going to be alright and she laughs and slowly sits up.

"Well well, Cato has a heart. I'm not dying, I just fell out of the tree."

He smirks a little and raises an eyebrow and helps her up and she smiles. They are truly a team now.

"I just want to go home." Cato says simply, and so she takes his hand and for the first time in a very long time she is touching someone to comfort them, not harm them. It shocks her, but something in her brain, a part that she has long since shut off tells her that doing this is normal and that it is nice.

He is bemused, but doesn't mind because he has been trying to figure out this girl for so long and he wants to go home with her so they can both be Victors.

* * *

That night they whisper how they are going to kill the other ones and play fight over who will get to kill Peeta and who will get to kill the Fire Girl and they do not even mention harming the other.

They both know that they will kill the other in a heartbeat if necessary, because that is what is expected of them and they do not like each other enough to not fight to the death, but they can at least hope that they will both make it home.

* * *

She dies and the last thought through her mind is that she will not get to paint the colour of blood or watch the Fire Girl die.

With her death, his heart and soul die too because he was the only one who was allowed to kill her and he did not want to.

He dies and the last thought through his mind is that maybe he will see his brother.

* * *

In an alternate reality, a boy named Cato is asking a girl named Clove if she can help him with his homework and she is blushing and nodding her head.

In this reality, a boy named Cato is being buried next to a girl named Clove.

Because they were born into District Two and that made all the difference.

* * *

**Review please. :)**


End file.
